ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
WELL-KNOWN MEDICAL JOURNALIST PUBLISHES ACCLAIMED FIRST NOVEL

For more than 20 years, Michael Castleman has been “one of the top health writers in the country,” (Library Journal). Specializing in health, medicine, fitness, nutrition, and sexuality, he is the author of 10 consumer health books that have more than 2 million copies in print, and he has published more than 1,000 newspaper, magazine, and Web articles. To sample Castleman’s journalism visit http://www.mcastleman.com.

But all he ever really wanted to do was write novels.

“My mother was a librarian who adored fiction,” Castleman explains. “As a kid, I can remember times when she became so engrossed in a novel that she refused to make our family dinner. That made an impression.”

Castleman began reading fiction avidly in junior high in Malverne, New York, a small town on Long Island near Kennedy Airport. He majored in English at the University of Michigan, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. “I toyed with fiction in college. But it was clear that I didn’t have a prayer of making a living writing it. I didn’t want to be an English professor. My father was a professor at an engineering college in New York, and familiarity with the academic politics my Dad had to contend with soured me on academia.”

After college, Castleman got a job as an administrator at the Ann Arbor Free Clinic, a community primary-care facility. “It didn’t take long to see that half the people who came in could have avoided their health problems with a little medical information. I enjoyed science, especially biology. I began writing health education Fact Sheets that staff handed out to Clinic patients.”

In 1972, those Fact Sheets landed Castleman a job as the health columnist for the local alternative weekly, The Ann Arbor Sun. “I got paid $10 a column for 2,000 words--and I loved it. I was making money as a writer.” He’s been writing about health, medicine, fitness, nutrition, and sexuality ever since.

Castleman moved to San Francisco in 1975 when his girlfriend, now wife, Anne Simons, was accepted into medical school at the University of California, at San Francisco. He earned a Masters in Journalism from the University of California, at Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. From 1980 to 1990, he was the editor of Medical Self-Care, a national health magazine, published in scenic Pt. Reyes, an hour north of San Francisco. Since 1990, he’s been a freelance medical journalist. In 1995 and 1996, he taught medical writing at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. In 1996, he was nominated for a National Magazine Award for an article about breast cancer in San Francisco Focus magazine. He has won many other journalism awards. “I love medical journalism. I enjoy empowering people to take greater control of their lives.”

Now that he’s “out” as a someone who makes up stories, does Castleman fear that health editors might balk at assigning him medical articles that demand scrupulous accuracy? “Oh no. My health pieces have to pass a rigorous fact-checking process, and they always do, which is why I keep getting assignments. I have plenty of journalism work. Many of my editors have drafts of novels in their drawers. They’ve all been very supportive. Best of all, they’ve enjoyed The Lost Gold.”